Mental Health Renewal Programme: Early Intervention in Psychosis Community of Practice Workshop, July 2026

Details

On Tuesday 28 July 2026, the Mental Health Renewal programme hosted the first workshop for the Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) community of practice.

This workshop aimed to:

• Form a sustainable network of professionals working on Early Intervention in Psychosis that enables collaboration, learning, knowledge sharing, advocacy and continuous improvement.
• Share learning on key topic areas that enable effective delivery of the Early Intervention in Psychosis model.

What we heard participants want from the community of practice, and how we’ll take this forward:

• Hold meetings every 4-6 months to share learning, innovation and service developments.
• Create opportunities to stay connected between meetings, including exploring a Microsoft Teams channel.
• Keep discussions multidisciplinary, recognising the value of different professional, lived experience and primary care perspectives.
• Offer occasional discipline-specific breakout sessions where there is interest in exploring topics in more depth.
• Support peer learning and problem-solving by sharing experiences, challenges and examples of good practice.
• Strengthen relationships across services to reduce isolation and celebrate successes together. 

Discussions in the breakouts highlighted the many strengths in workforce planning and service delivery throughout EIP services, as well as some challenges:

Succeses

• Strong commitment to workforce development, with teams actively identifying and addressing training needs.
• Positive cultures, shared learning and strong partnership working support service improvement.
• Flexible and innovative approaches are helping services respond to workforce challenges.

Challenges

• Access to training and development opportunities remains variable, with workload and capacity pressures limiting participation.
• Staff do not always have opportunities to apply and maintain specialist skills.
• Further training is needed to support increasingly complex presentations and maintain fidelity to the EIP model.
• Greater involvement of lived experience, families, and support for remote and rural services were identified as key areas for development.

Catch up on the workshop

If you missed the workshop, watch the full recording below:

Or skip to the following presentations:

• Watch Suzy Clark’s presentation on service identity, model, culture and progress
• Watch Gordon McInnes presentation on lived experience perspectives using advance statements
• Watch Anne Joice’s presentation on psychological therapies and interventions for psychosis
• Watch Margaret Dool’s presentation on service delivery
• Watch David Ruddick and Laura Graham’s presentation on service delivery
• Watch Rachel Kings presentation on the history of the HIS EIP work and future support

Resources